


Morning Skies

by violetpaperstars



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Fluff, Gen, Introspection, Magic, Not Relationship Focused But There Are Hints, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 20:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30145398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetpaperstars/pseuds/violetpaperstars
Summary: It's easy to give unimportant things a greater significance inside your mind. It's another thing to notice it.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Morning Skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SamyAino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamyAino/gifts).



> (this is a very late brithday present asdghkl)
> 
> If you don't know what this is about...please don't read it. Or do, but don't blame me if you're confused.
> 
> To the three people that do know:  
> \- this takes place a few hours before the start of the main story  
> \- yes, it is canon

“Would it kill you to wear anything other than black for once?” Samy asks—out of boredom, he assumes, or just to spite him by purposely being a hypocrite.

“Yes,” he says, ignores Natsu’s poorly disguised laugh at the front of the cart, and refuses to look at her. Considering his line of work, he doesn’t even think he’s exaggerating.

Samy continues, “It’s already summer. That coat is going to boil you alive.”

“I survived last year.”

“Somehow,” Natsu throws in without looking back at them.

After that, it’s quiet again.

They are less than a day’s travel away from Candes now. If the horse doesn’t need a break, they might even reach the city walls before the sun starts to set.

At the feeling of a kick against his leg, he takes his eyes away from the sky and looks to Samy sitting across from him.

He narrows his eyes and she answers it with a perfect imitation of an innocent smile, as if her foot isn’t still halfway across the space between them and completely giving her away. She really is bored. He might regret this.

“What?” he asks anyway.

Her smile loses the fake innocence, taking on a more teasing edge. But there’s genuine curiosity if you know where to look. “Seeing as it’s probably the most boring of colors,” she says, “what makes black so special to you?”

“I like it,” he shrugs. “Never said it’s special.”

Samy doesn’t look satisfied with that answer.

There are plenty of reasons for him to like the color black. Practical reasons, for the most part.

It’s dark, doesn’t stand out, blends well with the shadows and the darkness of the night, and most importantly, any bloodstains that find their way onto his clothes aren’t glaringly obvious at a passing glance. That last one hasn’t been quite as important recently, but it used to be on a near daily basis, and so it counts.

Instead of saying all that, though, he throws the question back at her, “What makes pink so special to you?”

“It’s not. I don’t wear it _all_ the time,” her tone is too defensive to sound believable. It might not be a complete lie, but it’s close enough.

Rather than calling her out, he leans forward until he can reach out and grab some strands of her hair. It’s long enough that when he holds it up into her line of sight, silently proving her wrong, there’s no resistance.

It’s hardly any different than him wearing mostly black. Such a bright shade of pink is very obviously not her natural color, so it’s safe to say she chooses to walk around with bright pink hair every single day. Despite it being partially fake, it still feels real between his fingers. Soft, too.

Anyway.

He lets go and drops his hand. When he looks back at Samy’s face again, she’s pouting at him.

“It looks good on me,” she protests, “and that doesn’t prove anything. I’m still not as obsessed with one single color as you!”

“Your magic is pink.” She immediately grimaces, knowing he successfully cornered her. So, he grins and puts one final nail in her coffin, “By design, I might add.”

She struggles for a hot second before crossing her arms and looking away with a huff. Her words are not as smooth as she probably wants them to be, “That. Means nothing. I—”

“Samy,” Natsu interjects, sounding both done and a little too amused at the same time, “just give it up. You lost this one.”

Samy’s head spins around so fast, he’s surprised she doesn’t look dizzy. She stares at Natsu’s back with an open mouth, trying to find her voice, “Wh— Since when do you take _his_ side?!”

“I would never!” Natsu says after an overly dramatic gasp. He, too, spins around in order to meet her betrayed glare with his own offended one. “How could you even think that?”

Samy throws her arms up in the air, “You said I lost! Are you not agreeing with me?”

“You’re both weirdos who decided to make a color your identity!”

“That— That’s debatable.”

“So, you agree.”

Samy opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then just resumes her earlier pouting. Natsu snickers to himself and turns back around to focus on the road now that the conversation is over.

And what a pointless conversation it had been.

He knows, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. That Samy places value in a random color, to the point where calling it a part of her identity isn’t wrong, is entirely inconsequential to the world they live in. But it is intriguing. To him, at least.

It’s such a small thing, yet she decided to give it so much more importance than what it really deserves if you think about it. It’s just a color. You could replace it with anything and nothing would change. However, as a result of her decision, he can’t imagine her being obsessed with a color that isn’t pink. It’s weird.

She’s not alone in this, too.

He can remember conversations with Natsu—or maybe they were more like arguments—about things that ultimately make no difference in the world, but matter a great deal to him. Things like food, certain scents, and on one late night occasion, during which he thinks Natsu might’ve been drunk, the superiority of folk dances over ballroom dances.

(It makes him think about what unimportant things _the others_ had made important to them. If they told him about any of it during a time before he started listening.)

Once he noticed it, how the people around him interact with seemingly trivial stuff, he began to consider these small things in relation to himself. He started to wonder if he gave some sort of significance to something trivial as well.

So far, he couldn’t really think of anything. He suspects that might be exactly because these things don’t appear trivial or small to him anymore, but he’d still like to know for sure that he does this, too. That he’s not any different from Samy and Natsu and all the other people out there.

But right now, while sitting in the back of a cart, waiting to arrive at their destination and trying to deal with the boredom until then, the whole conversation about colors finally sparks a memory inside his mind.

It’s a memory from years and years ago of the moment he found his favorite color, really saw it for the first time and let it become something important to him. He isn’t on the same obsessive level as Samy, he knows that, but just remembering the image is enough to reaffirm its significance to him.

Most of the details escape him. He doesn’t know what led up to it.

All he can recall is the vague sense of having had a very rough night, feeling unusually tired and exhausted, and he finally managed to reach a quiet place away from any cities or villages, out on a field—or maybe it had been a hill—taking a deep breath before looking up to see the sky changing color. From the dark blue and black tones of the night to a shade he now cherishes for the serenity it brought him that day.

In the present, his gaze slowly shifts over to Samy.

Since he last paid attention to her, she has started practicing her magic by creating a small spherical shape between her hands in front of her. It’s pink, as expected, fluctuating in size and form to the words whispered by her under her breath as she concentrates on it.

Behind her is the green of the forest surrounding their path, the color of the leaves a stark contrast to the one of her hair.

Samy’s brand of pink is bright—loud and attention-grabbing. It certainly fits her personality. But he has also seen her quiet and calm on more than a handful occasions. The color still suits her even then, but in these moments, he’s reminded of a softer shade of pink.

In his mind, that mellow version of her isn’t unlike the morning sky from the day back then.

Not just because of the color. It contributes, he’s sure of that, but the important thing to him is the fact that he can feel that same calmness he felt when seeing the color of that sky for the first time when he is with her. Only sometimes, though, when she isn’t purposely annoying him.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.

Still, these small things are important to him. For reasons he can’t explain, not even to himself, but he’s fine with that. It’s nice enough that he gets to notice them at all—that he gets to learn about Samy and Natsu’s important meaningless things, too.

He won’t end this until he knows everything there is to know about either of them and himself. There’s no deadline, so there’s plenty of time.

The city gates of Candes become visible in the distance.

At Natsu’s warning, Samy drops her practice sphere, letting it dissipate and return to the air, in order to begin cloaking their cart in a minor illusion to make it look like an ordinary merchant’s cart.

There is a glow surrounding her magic, invisible to everyone and anything aside from him. Naturally, it’s pink. Not her usual bright pink but a softer shade. The longer he looks at it, the more it reminds him of the morning sky.

It really is his favorite color.

He’s never going to admit that out loud.


End file.
